The principles of all genuine fellowship with God
1 John 3:7-10 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
These verses indicate that the false teachers/antichrists that these people were being bothered by, were apparently teaching that it was ok to sin and lead sinful lives. John again lets us know that it is not OK to sin. All sin is of Satan, no matter how small it is since he has been sinning from the beginning, plus all sin goes against the very reason Christ came. Christ came to put an end to Satan’s work and when we participate in even the smallest sin, we are working against Jesus instead of for Him.
John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
1 John 3:5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
Again, this is not to say that we never sin once we are saved, it’s saying that when we do sin, we are operating out of our sin nature instead of the new nature that the Lord gave us at salvation.
When John says this:
Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
he is saying that because someone that is saved is truly sinless at the core of their being (because of the new nature given them) when we sin, we are not manifesting our true nature. When an unsaved person sins, they are manifesting their true nature because their father is Satan. However when we sin, we are actually concealing our true nature because our father is God and He has given us a new sinless nature. Therefore when we see someone exhibit their true nature of righteousness, we can know for sure that they are saved. The opposite is also true. When we consistently see someone who fails to show love and fails to act righteously then we can know that they are not saved, no matter what they say. Love is righteousness in action.
1 John 3:11-12 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
Once more John reminds us that we are to love our Christian brothers and sisters and we are not to become jealous like Cain did when someone is more mature in Christ then we are. This reminds me of how often when I’m feeling jealous of someone it’s really because I feel guilty about not having done what I should have in my own life. Cain belonged to Satan, and those who don’t love their fellow Christians are acting from their sin nature. They are also acting the way the world acts rather then then following God’s ways.
I’m going to stop here today since I got started late today and am really very tired. With as tired as I am I’m afraid I might not be able to explain things well enough, so we’ll just pick up from here tomorrow.
